


give me your worst (and i swear i'll give in return)

by ventrue_antitribu



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Bad People Doing Bad Things To Bad People, Blood and Gore, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, I don't know how to tag this but I'm sure it'll be updated in the future, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Medical Experimentation, Multi, Other, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 17:55:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20782709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ventrue_antitribu/pseuds/ventrue_antitribu
Summary: An Au-Ra woman in Garlean captivity.A Garlean medicus, an unspoken promise, and an understanding for a future forged in the hellfires of mutually assured destruction.(Just some sort of free-form and interconnected works about my Final Fantasy XIV OCs, as well as potentially some friends' in the future. Some of the tags listed aren't in this first chapter, and I've never written multi-chapter so we'll see how this goes. Trying to get back into writing.)





	give me your worst (and i swear i'll give in return)

_1567, Twenty-second sun of the Sixth Umbral Moon_

“Khetayri Himaa?” A name, pronounced however poorly; however thick-tongued, however terribly _Garlean_ in its intonation. The Au-Ra in question doesn’t raise from the bench where she lies at the back of her dungeon cell, but she does loll her head to one side to watch its speaker as he slips past the heavy door. Her lips purse. She stares at him in silence. He allows it, leaning back against the wall and leafing through a folder of documents before finally glancing up, repeating,

“Khetayri?” Not an epithet, not a number. She licks her dry lips and folds an arm down over the stained, makeshift bandages wound about her otherwise bare ribcage.  
“Yes?” Pain barbs even the single word. She still makes no move to sit upright, and the unfamiliar Garlean closes the folder and crosses the room towards the bench, lowering a satchel and medical kit slung over his shoulder at her feet. 

He rifles through his kit wordlessly. Her tail lashes towards him, not long enough to reach but enough to give him pause - force him to think twice about moving closer. And it does - but only to draw a strange smile from him, a cursory glance down her battered body. 

“I am Valerian kir Sanguinus, _Medicus veteranus_ on duty. My subordinates told me you were something of a force and as such I’ll be seeing to your treatment for the duration of your time in solitary confinement.” His voice is soft but rumbling, all back-of-the-throat, and his name is horrifyingly -

“I know who you are.” His smile doesn’t diminish but falters, concerned, the corners of his full lips merely twitching slightly and brows knitting together. He selects a black bottle from the satchel. A sleeve of syringes, a handful of frosted crystalline phials.  
“So my reputation precedes me, then, Khetayri?” The question is light, his tone conversational, though he continues to stumble over her name.  
“Ayri, if you will,” She rasps.  
“Ayri,” He repeats, head tilting to one side and long, long braid draping over a shoulder. “How much pain are you in? Can you sit up?” Valerian shoves his satchel to the side and lays out the sleeve of syringes in its place, resting the bottles parallel to the furthest one from Ayri and stepping back to allow her room. She gasps with effort, muscles along her abdomen spasming, and shifts her legs off the edge of the bench.

Her prison-issue gown is torn just beneath her breasts, the apparent source of her bandaging. Her breathing comes ragged, deep and uneven against the agony of motion, the tattered fabric sliding up, leaving little to be imagined. Valerian makes no effort to mask his predatory admiration. “Destruction of property.” He gestures with his pen, tongue then pressed between his teeth behind the corner of his mouth. “Could warrant an extension in this cell. Now, Ayri,” He purrs the nickname, “Answer my previous inquiries, please.”

Ayri’s lips pull back around her teeth in grim form and she folds her hands between her thighs, shoulders slouched and spine doubled half over. She exhales slowly before her body is overcome with a wet, wracking cough. She lurches forwards, blood and phlegm oozing from between her grit teeth, and Valerian steadies a hand on her shoulder, the other producing a cloth from some pocket and dragging it up her throat and over her chin without missing a beat.  
“Lie down,” He commands coolly, nodding and stepping back, taking quick note of something in the folder he carries. “That’s answer enough.” And so she sinks back down onto the stone without ever taking her eyes from him, fixed on the flash of a scalpel he produces, on his wandering eyes. He drags the blade against her bandages down from the center of her sternum masterfully, only just curling a lip at the mess of split sutures; the bruises, the elegant rootwork of dessicated veins beneath the skin. 

“Ayri, Ayri, Ayri,” Valerian sighs. “Someone has made a Gods’ damned mess.” Her gaze darts towards his own, her left eye - the pupil spilling far beyond its normal bonds - lagging just slightly. “You’re blind in that eye - blunt force trauma. Did that happen here? There are no notes of it.” He taps the scalpel’s handle on a stretch of granulated tissue over a rib so recently exposed and she bites her tongue to keep from screaming, body trembling. “They didn’t tell me about that, either. Were you so troublesome as to warrant this?” And Ayri shakes her head almost too quickly, lips pursed together and features flat with a swift-killed rise of panic. 

“I- I’m not,” Ayri pants, stammers.  
“Not what?”  
“Not half-sodding-blind.”  
“Acknowledged.” He stares at her appraisingly, plucking the black bottle he’d previously selected and popping the lid. He upturns it to empty a pair of sizeable, chalky tabs onto his palm and closes his long fingers around them before sealing it back. He places the tabs next to Ayri’s hand, along with a waterskin from his hip. She shakes her head, grabbing for the tablets alone and slowly shifting to her side, wounds seeping and limbs trembling for the effort.  
“Do you have a lighter?” And she meets his _“Why?”_ with nothing more than an outstretched palm. He scowls deeply, eyes lowering to slits, but bounces back just as quickly and presses a small, metallic box into her hand. It is hinged, elegantly inlaid with deep blue gems. She flicks it a few times at the wrist languidly and he tries to hide the stiffening of his posture. 

Valerian steps back, watching intently as Ayri sets to work crushing the tabs and using an untrimmed nail to sort the powder which remains into clumsy lines. She licks a finger and presses it into one, rubbing it along her gums, and then leaning over as best as she can to take the rest up her nose. She pinches between her eyes and closes them against the watering, teeth gnashing at the burn.  
“That-” Valerian begins, words failing as his dark eyes once more sweep along Ayri’s gored form. “Alright.”  
“Works faster,” She offers quietly, settling into the moment where the agony falls into the background, granting space to breathe between skin and mind. “Do what you must.”

Valerian shakes his head and sets about cleaning the splits in her skin, removing old stitch-work. He packs wounds where necessary with clean cloth, replacing sutures, remaining mostly silent for the first while, listening to the Au-Ra’s quiet but uneven breathing, her occasional whimper. He examines her beyond the damage to her ribs - makes silent note of the bruises ringing her neck and wrists, painting the tops of her thighs a blotchy, swollen purple. He drags his tongue behind his teeth then, a thoughtful sound rumbling from his chest.

“Do you know how long they’re going to keep you in solitary?”  
“Do you think they’d tell me?” Ayri mutters her response, words half-slurring. “In perpetuity, I’d imagine. Don’t even think they remember why I’m here. It’s just an excuse.”  
“Bold words.”  
“Are they? The hells does it matter,” Ayri trails off, eyes still closed peacefully.  
“I suppose you’re right.” A bored concession, Valerian wrapping her ribs once more, now with fresh and proper bandages. She opens her right eye to stare at him and the faint curve forming on her lips whispers conspiracy for just a passing moment. His fingers respond with a brief tremor. “I think I like you.”  
“Most of your kind do.” Ayri’s words are loaded, her tone painfully devoid of humor. Valerian smirks and her eye closes once more, the room returning to silence but for the sound of his work. 

He packs up, returning the unused sleeve of syringes and myriad phials to his satchel. “I’ll return in time to refresh your bandages, and provide what painkillers you may need. Your warden will be reassigned, and the guards will be instructed away from your cell.” Valerian moves towards the locked door.

“The Wraith, they call you. Demon, scourge of the cellblock -”  
“Do they, now?” There isn’t a trace of irony in Valerian’s voice. He pauses, turns back towards Ayri, a manicured brow arching.  
“Yeah. Say you blackmail. That you torture, that you stalk and rape and threaten your patients with information about their families back home, that if they ever say anything, well.”  
“Fascinating, because it certainly sounds like something is being said.” Valerian’s smile is bemused. “I won’t ask for names, because I promise you - there aren’t any.”  
“That you’re responsible for the mass disappearances, that they only happen after you’ve been spotted here.”  
“That’s insane - I’m sorry, that’s utterly insane,” Valerian laughs. “I oversee transport, certainly, and assist in moving prisoners from place to place, ensuring a controlled environment and checking for health to prevent the spread of disease, but there haven’t been any ‘disappearances’ on or off record. It’s just as likely that I’ve cut your songbirds off, that they were under my care for injuries like your own and begrudge me no longer providing them the painkillers as I have provided you. They want the kick - the high. You seem to be familiar with the practices of their kind, no?”  
Ayri turns her head to stare at him squarely, face a haunting mask.  
“Rest, Ayri. At ease - a rhetorical question. I’ve given you word of what will happen, and I’ll return when I’m needed.” 

-

A shimmer of aether seethes from the wall outside the cell door as Valerian passes, color bleeding from the air in its wake until it takes the presence of a small-statured man who trails the doctor down the hallway.  
“Iovita,” Valerian smiles cheerfully, nodding in acknowledgement as he falls into step. The pair couldn’t be more different in contrast - Iovita’s shock of red hair, his freckles, bright green eyes juxtaposed to Valerian’s own raven-black curls, orange eyes, and even complexion - but their sharp features and bear a stark, familial similarity. 

Iovita oen Sanguinus sighs, offering his brother a frigid grin. “Un-humorable insanity, eh? A fiction crafted by bitter addicts?” Valerian returns the smile, his own full of teeth and venom and infinitely more humor. “You’re gonna fuckin’ break this one from the inside-out, aren’t you?”


End file.
